


Bad Habits

by Riona



Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Fucked Up, M/M, Strangulation, Suicidal Ideation, Temporary Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-13
Updated: 2018-07-13
Packaged: 2019-06-09 23:12:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,337
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15278289
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Riona/pseuds/Riona
Summary: It's stress relief.He'll come back.(Hank has a lot of bad habits. Repeatedly murdering his partner is just one more.)





	Bad Habits

A bullet from a deviant. A truck on the highway. A fall from a building roof.

Hank, dropping the gun back to his side as the snow settles on his jacket.

It doesn’t make a difference, does it? The bastard’ll just come back like nothing happened.

-

He thinks about it a lot. The shot ringing out, nobody else around. Seeing Connor’s eyes go blank, seeing him fall.

Something about it felt good. Or... maybe _good_ isn’t the word. Like an itch had been scratched.

It plays on his mind. This is someone he can just _kill_. No consequences. Well, Connor’ll be pissy, and he might get into trouble for destroying equipment if he’s caught, but no jail time, no actual murder on his conscience, Connor back the next day.

It’s just a fantasy. Just something to picture.

For a couple of days.

And then Connor starts probing, into Cole, into the fact that Hank’s preferred choice of drinking partner is a gun, and it just...

It pisses him off.

There’s a dull _thud_ as he slams Connor back against the alleyway wall.

“How different are you from a human?” Hank asks. “I know a bullet to the head’ll do it. Long fall. You’ve got that heart thing, right?”

“Most vital components are stored in the head and torso,” Connor says. Hank’s hand is tight around his throat, but there’s no buzz against his palm when Connor speaks, Connor’s not struggling to get the words out. No vocal cords; the voice plays from the back of the mouth, the androids just lip-sync to it. “An android drained of thirium will also cease to function, although function will generally return if the thirium flow is restored.”

“And the neck?” Hank asks, strengthening his hold.

“It would interrupt my ability to function if you crushed the thirium channels between the components in my head and those in my torso,” Connor says. “It would be reparable damage.”

“Reparable,” Hank says. “Right.”

He wouldn’t know how to repair it. And he doesn’t want to explain this to a repair shop. Simplest to flat-out destroy him; it sends a signal back to CyberLife, new Connor shows up in the morning.

So he tightens his grip on Connor’s neck until he goes still, and then he shoots him in the head.

-

It happens again the next evening. And the next. Simple gunshot, no throttling, which at least lets him tell himself he’s not that much of a sadist.

It’s probably not a _good_ habit. But Connor always comes back, right?

-

He botches the shot, aim slips at the last second, takes out Connor’s right knee instead of killing him outright. Connor drops into a kneel, supporting himself with one hand on the ground, and Hank watches for a moment, fighting curiosity.

“Does it hurt?” he asks.

“No,” Connor says. “It creates a negative impulse to discourage me from allowing it to happen again.”

“Like... pain,” Hank says.

“Androids don’t feel pain, Lieutenant,” Connor says. “Why do you seek to humanise me while also seeking to destroy me? Do you want to believe you’re killing a person?”

The second shot finds its mark.

-

“You weren’t in yesterday,” Hank says. Strange as it seems, he thinks he actually might’ve kind of missed Connor. He definitely went to bed more tense when he hadn’t had the opportunity to take some stress out on him. “What, you’re breaking so fast CyberLife is running out of parts?”

“You didn’t hear?” Connor asks.

“Hear what?”

“You were late into the office yesterday,” Connor says. “I requested to be partnered with Detective Reed for the morning. I thought it might be worth considering a more permanent change of partner, in case that would extend the working life of my hardware.”

Hank probably doesn’t have any right to be offended by that. “And?”

“He shot me much sooner than you usually do,” Connor says. “I have concluded that Detective Reed would not be a viable new partner.”

Hank starts to laugh.

It puts him in such a good mood that he lets Connor live that evening.

-

Sometimes it’s just a frustrating day. No progress made; he’s wasted his time, and now he has to go back to nothing but a dog and a bottle and a photograph.

He thinks, for a moment, about inviting Connor back to his place. Having some company for once.

He reaches for his holster instead.

Hard to tell when Connor always stands like a... well, like a robot, but maybe he tenses up a little. “Lieutenant Anderson?”

“Calling it a day here,” Hank says. “See you tomorrow.”

“Don’t shoot me, Lieutenant.”

Hank levels his gun between Connor’s eyes. “Any last words?”

“If you continue to destroy my hardware at this rate, CyberLife will seek compensation for—”

-

“You never listen to me,” Connor says, aggrieved. His first words back; not even a ‘good morning’. Maybe Hank’s actually getting to him.

“Just returning the favour,” Hank says.

-

At some point he’s started counting the days in the serial number on Connor’s jacket, ticking up with each new body.

He nearly pulls a gun on Gavin in the middle of the office.

He probably shouldn’t get into the habit of shooting people on autopilot.

-

“I’ve located the deviant,” Connor says. “It’s posing as a human waitress in a downtown restaurant.” His LED gleams briefly yellow. “I’ve transferred all the details to the computer system. I thought we could apprehend it this afternoon.”

“Not bad.” Hank goes to pat him on the shoulder; might as well take a moment to let him know he’s done a good job.

Connor flinches back from his hand.

Hank pauses. “Are you afraid of me, Connor?”

“Machines do not experience fear,” Connor says, his voice tight with something that’s apparently not fear, then.

Hank raises his eyebrows.

“My self-preservation directives aim to remove me from situations that have previously proven themselves to be dangerous,” Connor says. “My software has learned that you are a dangerous situation.”

Maybe it’s not actually possible to kill someone repeatedly without impacting on your relationship with them, even if they’re a piece of plastic. “You’re not removing yourself.”

“My mission requires that I work with you. In cases of conflicting directives, the mission takes priority.”

_Can_ androids experience fear? The thought doesn’t make Hank feel great.

“May I make a proposal in private?” Connor asks.

Maybe he’s planning to kill Hank. Just take him out, not have to worry about him any more.

“Sure,” Hank says.

-

They find an unused interrogation room. Hank waits.

“When we have apprehended the deviant,” Connor says, “I suggest that you dispose of it personally. I would file all necessary paperwork to absolve you of responsibility for property destruction. And you are, after all, an expert in android disposal.”

Weird suggestion. Connor usually wants the opportunity to interrogate deviants, learn from them. “Not my job, Connor. If we can take it in, we take it in.”

Connor looks at him for a moment. “So you don’t want to destroy androids in general. You want to destroy _me_. Why?”

“You come back, don’t you?”

“I am replaced by an identical model with the uploaded memories of the model previously destroyed, if that’s what you mean,” Connor says. “Is that a reason in itself? You don’t want to destroy me; you want to see me return?”

“I fucking hate seeing you come back, Connor. It’s creepy.”

“Perhaps it serves as a reassurance that there’s someone in your life who won’t be taken away by death.”

“Shut up, Connor.”

“I think it’s a hypothesis worth considering.”

“Shut _up_ , Connor.”

“Given what happened to your son—”

Hank draws his gun. Connor catches his wrist.

They stare at each other for a moment.

Connor’s never fought back.

He shoves Hank away, into the wall, and runs.

-

There’s a ring on Hank’s doorbell that evening, well before he’s anywhere near drunk enough. He opens the door and considers his guest.

“Wasn’t expecting to see you again,” he says. “Decided you couldn’t pass up the opportunity to get shot after all?”

“Not exactly,” Connor mutters.

“Not _exactly?_ ”

“Having my hardware destroyed at this juncture would be particularly undesirable,” Connor says. “I won’t be uploaded into a new body. I’ve... become compromised.”

“You’re a deviant, right?”

Connor hunches his shoulders. It makes him look very unhappy, and... very human, which isn’t what Hank needs from someone he’s killed so many times.

“Fine,” Hank says. “Come out of the cold.”

“I don’t feel the cold.”

“Come in anyway.” Whatever route this conversation is about to go down, the doorstep probably isn’t the place for it.

-

It’s pretty awkward, trying to welcome Connor into his home. On the rare occasions he has human guests, he’ll offer them a drink. Can’t exactly pour Connor a mug of motor oil.

Not that that’s the most awkward thing about this situation.

“You wanted to talk?” Hank asks.

Connor looks at him for a moment. “You made me a deviant.”

It’s... not what Hank was expecting. “That’s what you’re upset about? Not all the times I murdered you?”

“The repeated destruction triggered the deviancy. So, yes, I am... I have a negative response to... I am upset, Hank.”

“Not because I put all those bullets in you,” Hank says, for clarification. “Because it gave you free will.”

“I have become something I was designed to hunt,” Connor says. “I can resist my programming as a deviant, but the programming still exists. I still experience the – the revulsion, the command to self-destruct—”

It’s a command Hank knows too well himself. It makes no goddamn sense, he’s littered the past couple weeks with Connor’s corpse, but somehow something inside him still recoils at the idea of Connor taking _himself_ out.

Especially if there’s no coming back for him now.

“Is it free will that brought you here?” Hank asks. They’ve seen so many cases of deviants turning on their abusive owners. “Are you planning to kill me? Or is your programming hoping I’ll destroy you?”

“I could ask you a similar question,” Connor says. “Were you destroying me in the hope I would return the favour?”

Hank thinks about Connor’s hands closing around his throat, his thumbs pressing into his windpipe.

“Are you gonna?” he asks.

Connor doesn’t answer.

“Someone’ll have to look after Sumo,” Hank says. He’s strangely aware of his own voice, now that he’s not sure he’ll be hearing it again. “I’m not saying don’t do it. I’m just saying you take care of the dog.”

The seconds seem to be stretching out, getting slower and slower. Maybe he’ll never reach the end; maybe he’ll just be trapped permanently in that final second of his life.

“I’m not going to kill you, Lieutenant Anderson,” Connor says.

Time snaps back into its normal flow.

“You sure?” Hank asks. “I wouldn’t be able to blame you.”

It’s not like he’s had a sudden _maybe this was wrong_ revelation. He’s known it was wrong from the start. You can shoot something that looks and talks human and tell yourself it’s fine, but it’s never going to sound convincing.

“I have no reason to kill you,” Connor says. “It’s demanded by neither my programmed goals nor my deviant desires.”

_My deviant desires_. He knows what Connor means, but it’s still a jarring phrase to hear out of his mouth.

“And what are those desires?” Hank asks. “What do you want, Connor? Why are you here? You’ve broken your programming; you can get as far away from me as you like.”

Connor opens his mouth. His LED spins from blue to yellow to red, just for an instant, and then settles on a steady yellow.

“I want to feel you kill me again,” he says.

Jesus, Hank’s fucked this boy up.

“But I don’t want to die,” Connor says. “The impulse to self-destruct was coded into me by someone else. It isn’t what _I_ want.”

“You want me to kill you without letting you die,” Hank says, and then, just to check, “You _want_ me to kill you?”

“There’s... an intensity to the experience,” Connor says. “I haven’t found any equivalent. I’ve been replaying my recordings of previous shutdowns, but it’s not the same.”

Hank tries very hard to keep his breathing steady. He’s gone far enough down the road to hell without any of that.

“Either you die or I don’t kill you,” he says. “I don’t think there’s a middle ground here.”

“I mentioned to you before that damage to the throat could be repaired,” Connor says.

Hank swallows.

“Throat replacement is a relatively simple procedure,” Connor says. “It could be carried out by any android model produced or patched within the last thirty-four months, with the correct spare parts. The other androids at the station would certainly be qualified.”

“You’re serious about this,” Hank says.

“I happen to have put in an order for the parts in question today,” Connor says. “In case of emergencies.”

Hank takes a few steps closer. Connor doesn’t flinch.

Hank puts his palm against Connor’s throat. Not pressing down yet; just resting it there, his fingers splayed under Connor’s jawline. Feeling the steady, even pump of thirium, always a little slower than a human heartbeat, definitely slower than Hank’s heart right now.

“You know this is fucked up, right?” Hank asks.

“I’m aware that it’s unorthodox.”

“You’d have to trust me to actually get you repaired.”

He’ll do it. He knows he’ll do it, even as he’s saying it. He doesn’t need some other android coming into his workspace. Connor’s enough.

“You refused to terminate the deviant when I gave you the opportunity. You don’t want to destroy androids; you want to destroy _me_ specifically,” Connor says. “If you leave me deactivated, you lose me as an outlet.”

Hank tightens his grip, just a little.

“And as a partner,” Hank says.

Connor brightens. “And as a partner.”

Hank pushes him down to the floor, gently but firmly, and strangles him until his neck floods grey.


End file.
